the view from here
by ninejs
Summary: "The world? Gray, we live in a cul-de-sac. That's not quite expansive enough to be the whole world." —gray/tobin, modern au. happy valentine's day!


**hi and welcome to the dumbest thing i've ever written. but it's been so long and i love graybin, so... here we are.**

**anyway! this is a valentine's day themed fic that is actually being published on valentine's day which is surprising, because i've never done that before and probably never will again but i mean, whatever. **

**title of this comes from check yes juliet by we the kings... i know, i'm incapable of letting things go. **

* * *

Tobin knows he's not 14 anymore. He shouldn't be keeping up his anti-Valentine's Day energy, as he's long since realized it's not even an actual holiday. But still...

_Sigh_.

Unsurprisingly, Tobin will be alone, yet again, on Valentine's Day. Or well, single. Alone is not really the right word. Because Gray will inevitably rope him into what he calls his "Annual Valentine's Day Prank."

(Thinking on it, Tobin sighs. Only _Gray_ would decide to prank people on Valentine's Day, of all days.)

The thing is, Gray _says _it's annual, but he's only been doing it since the year before last. And it had started as an accident, a regular day of Gray being... himself and deciding to trick Alm by giving him a box of candy conversation hearts. The "trick" was in Gray having gotten them personalized to have a bunch of weird, cryptic messages that Gray had copied from one of those "if you don't repost this this girl will break into your house" chain-mail messages on them to freak Alm out. And by telling him they were from someone else, so Alm would take them without getting suspicious.

For a while, it worked. And it _was _pretty funny. Alm seriously believed that some weird demon girl was going to break into his house and kill him for like a week. At least, until Kliff grew bored of the whole thing and sent Alm a copy of the chain message. After that, Alm realized what had happened and was more upset with the fact that Gray had successfully tricked him than the fact that Gray had even decided to do the whole thing at all. Tobin always wondered how Alm didn't realize he was so gullible. After all, that was why Gray usually picked him to prank.

After that, Gray decided that the whole thing had been so fun (despite costing him almost 50 bucks) that he should prank someone on Valentine's Day every year in Valentine's Day themes.

Last year, he thought it would be funny to paint everyone in the neighborhood's cars shades of pink, red, and white - Valentine's Day colors. When asked what the reasoning behind such a thought was, Gray said it was "festive." (..._Right_. If Gray wasn't obsessed with being "festive" for holidays that no one knew about until they logged onto google and discovered that it really existed, like National Pizza Day, Tobin wouldn't have believed him at all.)

In the end, Tobin ended up having to help Gray carry around a huge box of containers of spray paint before Gray quickly realized it was way too difficult to paint so many different cars in such a short amount of time. What resulted was Gray's decision to just paint his friends' parents' cars (which was pretty much everyone in the cul-de-sac at the end of their street), and even then, he had pretty much scrapped the idea of painting the cars in one color and ended up just doodling shapes that vaguely resembled hearts on the cars. And shit like "Gray wuz here" as if he was 9 years old. He even wrote the r in his name backwards, so it ended up being pretty authentic.

That Valentine's Day was pretty fun, actually, despite having no romantic partner to spend it with. Tobin had had a surprising amount of fun watching Gray spray paint cars, although the _real_ fun was watching Gray, in heavy winter clothes, having to wash all the paint off the next morning. Tobin spent the whole morning laughing at him while watching him from his bedroom window, and even went so far as to torture him by drinking hot chocolate and everything. Gray kept pouting up at him, but Tobin hadn't spared him any pity until Gray had finally completed his punishment (which, Tobin had pointed out, could have been easily avoided had Gray not made it so obvious he was the one that did it, but then Gray was always all about letting everyone know he was behind some weird stunt like this), letting him inside to get warmed up and drink hot chocolate. It was kind of pointless, seeing as they were next door neighbors and he could have easily done the same thing at his own house, but...

Looking back on it, Tobin _had _kind of owed it to Gray. He had been weirdly willing to take the whole blame for the prank, even though Tobin had been his accomplice (as always). In fact, Tobin was sure that most of the adults in the neighborhood _knew_ Tobin had helped Gray, and yet he had been so adamant about Tobin not having been involved. It was weird, especially when Gray had patted him on the back and told him he had done it to spare Tobin, since he knew he hated the cold. And, according to Gray: "I wouldn't be a real bro if I put you through that."

It wasn't like he and Gray didn't do nice things for one another now and then, seeing as they had been best friends since forever, but Tobin had never seen Gray try so hard to protect him from something stupid that they had done together. They always bared the consequences together. It was only fair, seeing as they did stupid stuff together all the time. It was just their thing.

Then again, if Tobin was remembering right, last year around that time had already been kind of weird for them. Gray had been dating this girl and, well, Tobin hadn't exactly been pleased about it. It was just that he didn't really want to _share_ his best friend with anyone, whatever that was supposed to mean. Their relationship had barely lasted for two weeks, but Tobin had been kind of touchy about the whole thing, so Tobin figured Gray taking all the blame for the scheme was because he had thought Tobin was still upset with him.

He suddenly felt super guilty about the whole thing and put his face in his hands. God. He had been so weirdly jealous and... _possessive_ and it was super uncalled for. It was far from the first time he'd felt jealous when it came to that sort of thing. Tobin must have been like, 13, the first time he'd realized that he was terrified of the idea of Gray dating someone, of entering a relationship that could be as meaningful and as serious as the one the two of them shared. Every time he considered that happening, he worried that he would lose his best friend. He'd always done his best at suppressing that, at telling himself he was just being dumb, but for some reason, as time went on, it became harder to keep all of those feelings tightly packed away. It all just seemed to explode last year. Maybe that was just the result of keeping it all bottled away. To make it worse, he really wasn't sure if they'd ever even properly resolved it.

And... well, that's just _great_! He'd definitely be unable to stop thinking about that the next time he saw Gray.

And the next time that would happen would be super soon, considering the fact that they saw each other every day. Also, tomorrow was Valentine's Day, so he was bound to see Gray one way or another. Which made Tobin remember... Although it was only the second time he was upholding the prank tradition, it was the first time Tobin hadn't been in on it, as well. It felt kind of odd, and as Tobin laid down to go to sleep, a feeling of worry built up in his chest. The only time Gray never told him the secret of his pranks was when...

If Gray hadn't told him about it, does that mean Tobin was going to be the recipient of the prank?

He sighed, closed his eyes and tried his best to will away the feelings of worry and... whatever _other_ feelings had come to him concerning the events of last year and his odd jealousy. All of that was a problem for the Tobin of tomorrow, who had gotten enough sleep to be able to deal with all of that.

...

...

_SLAM!_

Tobin awoke with a start. He looked at the clock on his nightstand. 3:00 blared back at him in bright red.

It took him a minute to really wake up, but he had to make those unlawful slamming noises stop. He knew exactly where they were coming from, or more importantly, from _who_ they were coming from.

Gray and Tobin, as kids without phones or walkie-talkies, once decided to keep a collection of rocks in their rooms to toss at each other's windows so they could talk whenever they wanted. By now, though, they had long outgrown this process. Since, now that they were older, they had easily usable cell phones that didn't, you know, have a risk of breaking glass and getting them in trouble. Still, throwing rocks was more efficient than their other primitive, pre-cellphone having era way of communicating. After the release of _that one_ Taylor Swift music video that Faye had been obsessed with, Gray and Tobin had thought it would be hilarious to talk to each other the same way. Of course, being them, the messages had been much more aggressive than anything Taylor and her music video boyfriend had written to each other. It also didn't even end up working half the time considering how terrible both of their handwriting had been when they were younger.

Still, Tobin sighed and got up to open his window. They didn't have anymore rock collections in their rooms (at least, _Tobin_ didn't, and he could never really be sure about what Gray kept in his room), so Gray was probably waiting for him downstairs. Sure enough, when Tobin looked down from his window, Gray was standing there, having stopped in the midst of rock throwing now that he realized he had finally woken Tobin up. Suspiciously, he looked pretty... normal. He wasn't carrying anything prank related. This made Tobin even more wary, and he couldn't help but feel that he was absolutely going to be the victim of Gray's next prank.

In any case, Gray was finally in listening range. Tobin could finally yell at him to go back to sleep. Or, well, a quieter sort of yelling. Tobin's entire family was sleeping like normal people _should _be, like Tobin wished he currently was. He didn't want to wake them up, especially not his siblings.

"I _guarantee_ whatever you have to say to me is not important enough that you had to wake me up and say it to me from all the way down there, _especially_ when we have phones and you could have literally just talked to me from the window, like usual? Anyway, whatever it is Gray, can it wait because I really want to sle-"

"Shut _up_ dude, you're gonna ruin it!"

"Oh my god! I _knew_ it! You're gonna prank me!" Well, Tobin was _not_ going to let Gray throw something into his open window and send him to the hospital, so he went to close it over before Gray inevitably threw a stick that was on fire inside, or something like that.

"Tobin, hold on! You _dumbass_, wait! Don't close the window! Tobin! _I'm not gonna prank you_!"

Tobin stopped halfway in the middle of closing the window. He let out a long sigh, suddenly knowing what it was like to be Kliff, who always looked like he wanted to say he was surrounded by idiots whenever all of them together.

And yet, he relented. Unfortunate as it was right now, he was incapable of not indulging Gray, no matter what the plan was. Faye had once called them "the most inseparable idiots alive" and Tobin, although he was inclined not to, had to agree.

"What do you want, then? And please explain why you had to toss rocks at my window at 3am instead of just texting me."

"Well, y'see, Tobro, I've decided to spare the world from my annual Valentine's Day prank! My skills are just too much, it would be too cruel to curse the world with them."

Gray got a laugh out of Tobin with that one, considering how melodramatic it had been. "The _world_? Don't you just mean the cul-de-sac we live on?"

"Well, actually, I was going to prank you this year, so in this case, the world is _you_," Gray said, all while shrugging off his ridiculously cheesy compliment that had left Tobin's (stupid) heart fluttering. Tobin knew that Gray had said that just to butter him up, to prevent him from shutting down whatever ridiculous plans he had. He did it all the time, to anyone that might shut him down (so basically everyone), but that didn't make the butterfly like feeling in Tobin's heart go away. Maybe it was because Gray was still smiling that dumb smile of his. The one that Tobin maybe sometimes kind of quite possibly liked seeing... like a lot. In spite of this, perhaps even in spite of himself, Tobin found himself smiling back, staring down at his friend with his head resting on his hand. Tobin should be annoyed with Gray for waking him up, for telling him that he would have pranked him, for the wave of affection that had just rode over him, but for some reason, he couldn't be.

Still...

"Okay, okay. Wrap it up. We have class tomorrow and I'm not going to let you copy all my notes just because you decided to do something really weird during the middle of the night again."

That was a lie. Tobin totally would. Gray knew that, too, which is why he was totally unconcerned with the statement. He also knew that if you wanted to copy someone's notes, Celica and Faye were better options. Even Alm was a better choice. Tobin had just said that to motivate Gray to hurry up.

"So much for all my romantic plans, huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Tobin could see it now, he'd be forced to drive Gray, in his shitty pick-up truck that all of his friend always made fun of (even though Tobin was the only one who could drive), to some random 24 hour convenience store so Gray could buy a tacky card for some unfortunate person who'd earned Gray's affection. "Are you going to make me drive you to 7-Eleven so you can buy a last minute card or something? Because Gray, I'm not going to do that. You know that, right?"

Gray looked almost offended. "No, of course not! Jeez, would you just let me finish?" Tobin moved his hand away from his face to use it to gesture to Gray to continue.

The expression on Gray's face was a grateful one, although Tobin was still worried about what would come out of his mouth. Not just because he wondered if Gray was lying about not making him drive somewhere at a crazy hour, but also because he was worried that the uncomfortable, jealous, fearful feelings he got whenever Gray liked someone would come back. No matter how far he shoved them down, they always came back. Tobin had too many years of experience to have any hope of successful repression.

"Instead of pranking you, I'm going to make you a bet."

Tobin blinked in confusion, but rather than interrupt Gray again, he just waited for him to continue.

"So," Gray starts, drawling out the o in a way that betrays the fact that he's obviously nervous (which was making this even weirder), "Let's say if I manage to successfully climb into your window from all the way down here, you have to spend Valentine's Day with me."

Tobin was still confused. Horribly so. "But, Gray, we always spend it together? You and I have literally never in our lives dated someone when it rolls around."

Well, Tobin has never actually dated _anyone_, but that's not important. The important part is that Gray's bet is pointless.

"Yeah, but that's not what I'm getting at here." Gray's almost fidgeting down there. Seriously, what's going on? What's he so nervous for? This was super out of character for him.

"Tobin. Oh my god. This is like talking to a wall. Take the hint, dude."

But _what_ hint? What was he missing? Okay, like, Tobin knew he wasn't always the brightest guy around. Kliff often said that Tobin was dumber than a bag of hammers, and well, Tobin knew that it was... mostly true. But, still, the way Gray was talking made it seem like whatever was going on was obvious. And it wasn't. This wasn't just Tobin's stupidity talking!

And then, suddenly, like a brick had just dropped out of the sky and hit him on the head, he got it. Oh. _Oh. _Tobin felt his eyes widen comically. Gray's sigh let Tobin know that Gray had realized that Tobin had just figured it out in that moment.

"Are you... asking me out? Like, on a date? But that would mean that you... like _me_? As in, romantically."

Gray let out a long groan. "You know what? Even if you don't agree to this bet, I'm still going to climb up there so I can kick your ass for being so stupid."

At any other time, Tobin would have been offended and responded with a comeback of his own. But he was still processing everything that was going on. Gray liked him. As in, _like _liked him. It kind of felt like Tobin had been electrocuted with the information. What was he supposed to say, to do in this situation? Better yet, why did he feel so happy from this revelation?

"Tobin, are you alive? Did I break you? Are you short circuiting?"

Silence. Tobin was trying to process everything, but he had moved far enough away from the window to the point where Gray couldn't see him anymore, which was why Gray was asking if he was okay.

"Okay, as embarrassing as this is for me, I'm actually kind of worried about you so I'm going to come up there to make sure you're okay." But instead of, you know, being a normal person, Gray was _Gray_ and had started literally _scaling the side of his house_. Tobin could hear him trying to climb it, could hear his weight shaking the lattice as he attempted to get high enough to grab it. He was failing miserably, it seemed, as Tobin could hear him cursing as he slipped back down. That moved Tobin into action.

"Gray, oh my god, do not _climb_ my house! There's stairs you can use if you really want to get up here? Can you please just act like a normal human being for once in your life?"

Gray wasn't listening. He kept on trying to climb high enough to use the lattice as a ladder, all while Tobin was pleading with him to stop, to no avail. Eventually, because Gray seemed to be able to accomplish the impossible, he had gotten high enough to grab onto the lattice and use it as he had intended. He had made it high enough to the point where he was face to face with Tobin, and — oh, man, this was going to sound really, _really_ weird, but had he always had such pretty eyes?

Tobin decided to put that thought away for now, alongside the thoughts of what they were going to have to talk about inevitably, whether or not Gray successfully climbed into his room or not. He reached for Gray's hand, ready to pull him into the window, Gray's body leaving the lattice and—

_CRASH!_

Faster than the blink of an eye, Gray had fallen all the way back down. From this high up...

It had all happened so fast. Gray's hand had slipped right out of Tobin's. Apparently, Gray was confident that Tobin was going to be able to pull him up, by his arm, through his window into his room. Well, the level of trust Gray had for him certainly was appreciated, but his apparent lack of brain cells was not. Tobin wondered, though, which of them actually had less, because Tobin had went along with all of this, of his own volition, failing to realize the same fault in the plan that had lead Gray to his demise.

When the moment of surprise and realizing his own idiocy had passed, Tobin suddenly felt a pit of worry and guilt build in his gut very rapidly. He leaned his head out the window, with an ironic lack of regard for his own safety, trying to see Gray on the dark ground, wet with melted snow.

"Gray, are you okay? Are you alive? Please say you are because as much as I hate the both of us right now for being so dumb I really don't want you to be dead!" Tobin wasn't even thinking about what was coming out of his mouth. The mass of negative emotion in his worry lit something up in his brain, and he felt like he had been hit on the head with a hammer. Another realization had hit him almost as rapidly as the last one. It was one that frightened him, especially considering the situation, but it was also one that would have to wait until he could be sure that Gray was alive. "I'm going to come downstairs and if you're actually dead I'm going to be so mad at you because you can't just tell me you want to date me and then die."

Tobin was prepared to rush downstairs, before he heard a muffled, "I'm not dead" come from outside his window at the same time the door to his room opened, revealing one of his younger sisters, whose expression was caught between anger and worry. He spent a quick moment explaining the situation to her while also thanking her for covering for him. Dealing with his parents right now would... probably have made him vomit, if he's being honest. He would have to tell them seeing as he was probably either be driving Gray to the hospital the minute he got downstairs or calling an ambulance. The former option was preferable, but Gray wasn't exactly moving a lot right now.

When he had finally made it downstairs, Gray had moved himself into an upright position. He was wobbly on his feet, but he could stand and walk, which meant that his legs weren't broken, which was a relief. His right arm, however, was a different story... Well, while this was unfortunate for Gray, this worked out for Tobin, who could stay out of trouble, at least for a little bit longer.

Gray is in the passenger seat of Tobin's truck, laughing way too loud for someone who's arm is now either broken or sprained or something.

"I don't know why you're laughing. Honestly, Gray? I would kick your ass if you didn't already have a broken arm."

That only makes Gray laugh louder, and if Tobin wasn't so mad, he'd almost appreciate the way it seems to reach his eyes, in that kind of breathtaking way it always does. But, well, Tobin is mad.

"Gray, I can't believe you tried that. Stop laughing! This isn't funny! I was really worried about you," Gray's laugh dulls in sound, but doesn't stop completely. Tobin sighs, unable to keep himself from laughing along, even if it feels more nervous than anything. "If you ever do something that stupid again I _swear_ I won't ever forgive you."

That kills Gray's laughter. There's silence, for a moment, and then: "Yes, you will." The confidence in Gray's voice is matched by an overbearing fondness in his eyes, something that only a friendship that's lasted as long as theirs can manage to create.

Tobin sighs, gripping the steering wheel tighter in hopes of making that fluttering feeling go away. "...Yeah, I will. But I won't be as worried about you next time this happens."

Gray leans on the hand that belongs to the arm not currently unusable and says, again, in the same tone of voice: "Yes, you will."

Tobin shook his head, choosing not to look over at him, knowing how quickly he would melt and relent. "I can't believe I'm driving you to the hospital at 4 in the morning. I can't believe that you tried to climb my house for some stupid bet when you could have just asked me out straight up. I can't believe you."

There was another moment of silence, but this one wasn't the same as the last. It was awkward, heavy with Tobin acknowledging what had happened before everything had turned into the current situation. Tobin realized he had essentially just put his foot in his mouth, and as much as he wanted to change the subject, he feared saying something stupid and making the situation worse. But before he had a chance to, Gray decided to continue the conversation.

"So... does that mean you would have said yes? Because, I thought you liked me back, but after you broke back there, I'm wondering if I didn't read you all wrong."

Tobin kept his eyes focused on the road, the headlights of the car the only ones lighting up the road ahead of them. With no other cars driving this late, it felt ridiculously private, making the situation seem even more intimate than it already was. Gray kept his eyes trained on Tobin, waiting patiently for a response.

Tobin took a breath. "I... Honestly, and this is going to sound like, really dumb," At that, Gray let out a laugh, "But after you fell, it kind of. Hit me that yes, I might like you back. In that way."

The silence was starting to get old now. Tobin didn't quite know how to explain what he meant without making a further fool of himself - admitting that he didn't want Gray to get hurt was just something they didn't do. Not normally, anyway, and he definitely couldn't admit it now, when he couldn't even spare a glance at Gray. It was just too embarrassing.

"So, yeah. I mean, I would have said yes, had you asked me like a normal person instead of almost killing yourself and scaring all of this out of me."

"How high off the ground do you even think your room _is_? Come on, Tobes, I only broke my arm. It wasn't _that _bad," Gray had said this more under his breath than anything, but Tobin was still going to mention this to Gray's parents when he inevitably called them when they made it to the emergency room. That would show him not to take falling out of a window seriously.

"Anyway, um..." Gray trailed off, his eyes darting to glance out the window, "That's good news. That you would have said yes."

Tobin couldn't help but snort in response. "Is that really all you have to say to me?"

Gray let out a harsh sigh, "I mean, I don't know! I didn't really think I'd get this far. I didn't even know what I was gonna do had I lost the bet-"

"Oh, you _definitely _lost. You did say that you had to _successfully _climb up to m window, and you absolutely didn't do that."

"Hey!"

"So, tragically, I think that means you lose. And, since this means I won-"

Gray rolled his eyes. "I mean, you didn't _really _win-"

"_Since I won_," Tobin wouldn't let get away with Gray refusing to admit defeat, "That means I get to pick what I want you to do."

Gray put up no argument. He had admitted to not having thought of any conditions had he lost, so he knew there was no point in trying it. Worse, he worried that if he did, Tobin might decide the terms were that he got to pull over and leave Gray to die on the side of the road, even when his arm was either broken or sprained and he was in such terrible, terrible pain. (Was he being overdramatic? Absolutely not. Tobin was capable of genuine evil behind that stupid facade and pretty face of his.)

"So, my terms: first, never try to climb my house ever again. Lattices aren't ladders, y'know?" Gray sighed, and Tobin could tell that he thought Tobin was being a killjoy, "Second: if you're going to keep doing annual Valentine's or Christmas pranks, please leave me out of them if you decide to do something illegal."

"Killjoy," Gray said in a disappointed voice. Tobin laughed, having expected that. His friend glared back at him, but he was smiling. It wasn't very convincing.

"Anyway, if you promise to do all of that, then... I'll go out with you, despite your humiliating loss."

"Deal!" Gray said, suddenly excited. "But, I hope you know that now that you've agreed to this, you're going to have to do something very important for me."

"Oh? What's that?" Tobin was focused on pulling into the parking lot of the emergency room at the hospital, now that they had finally arrived. He hoped that if Gray had already decided to do something stupid again, he would at least wait until there was a doctor in the room with them.

"If I get a cast, you have to draw a heart on it for me with your name in the middle."

Tobin laughed. Yeah, this year's Valentine's Day was starting to be a good one.


End file.
